"You know, dear," she said, gently, "a house is always full of noises at night. Basket chairs creaking----"
Mr. Brown's face grew purple.
"_Basket chairs----!_" he exploded, violently, but allowed himself to be led unresisting from the room.
William finished his bed-making with his usual frown of concentration, then, lying down, fell at once into the deep sleep of childish innocence.
But Cousin Mildred was lying awake, a blissful smile upon her lips.
She, too, was now one of the elect, the chosen. Her rather deaf ears had caught the sound of supernatural thunder as her ghostly visitant departed, and she had beamed with ecstatic joy.
"Honk," she murmured, dreamily. "Honk, Yonk, Ponk."
William felt rather tired the next evening. Cousin Mildred had departed leaving him a handsome present of a large box of chocolates.
William had consumed these with undue haste in view of possible maternal interference. His broken night was telling upon his spirits.
He felt distinctly depressed and saw the world through jaundiced eyes. He sat in the shrubbery, his chin in his hand, staring moodily at the adoring mongrel, Jumble.
"It's a rotten world," he said, gloomily. "I've took a lot of trouble over her and she goes and makes me feel sick with chocolates."
Jumble wagged his tail, sympathetically.
CHAPTER VIII
THE MAY KING
William was frankly bored. School always bored him. He disliked facts, and he disliked being tied down to detail, and he disliked answering questions. As a politician a great future would have lain before him.
William attended a mixed school because his parents hoped that feminine influence might have a mellowing effect upon his character.
As yet the mellowing was not apparent. He was roused from his day-dreams by a change in the voice of Miss Dewhurst, his form mistress. It was evident that she was not talking about the exports of England (a subject in which William took little interest) any longer.
"Children," she said brightly. "I want to have a little May Queen for the first of May. The rest of you must be her courtiers. I want you all to vote to-morrow. Put down on a piece of paper the name of the little girl you think would make the sweetest little Queen, and the rest of you shall be her swains and maidens."
"We're goin' to have a May Queen," remarked William to his family at dinner, "an' I'm goin' to be a swain."
His interest died down considerably when he discovered the meaning of the word swain.
"Isn't it no sort of animal at all?" he asked indignantly.
"Well, I'm not going to be in it, then," he said when he heard that it was not.
The next morning Evangeline Fish began to canvass for votes methodically. Evangeline Fish was very fair, and was dressed always in that shade of blue that shrieks aloud to the heavens and puts the skies to shame. She was considered the beauty of the form.
"I'll give you two bull's eyes if you'll vote for me," she said to William.
"_Two!_" said William with scorn.
"Six," she bargained.
"All right," he said, "you can give me six bull's eyes if you want.
There's nothing to stop you givin' me six bull's eyes if you want, is there? Not that I know of."
"But you'll have to promise to put down my name on the paper if I give you six bull's eyes," she said suspiciously.
"All right," said William. "I can easy promise that."
Whereupon she handed over the six bull's eyes. William returned one as being under regulation size, and waited frowning till she replaced it by a larger one.
"Now, you've promised," said Evangeline Fish. "They'll make you ill an' die if you break your promise on them."
William kept his promise with true political address. He wrote "E.
Fish--I _don't_ think!" on his voting paper and his vote was disqualified. But Evangeline Fish was elected May Queen by an overwhelming majority. She was, after all, the beauty of the form and she always wore blue. And now she was to be May Queen. Her prestige was established for ever. "Little angel," murmured the elder girls.
The small boys fought for her favours. William began to dislike her intensely. Her voice, and her smile, and her ringlets, and her blue dress began to jar upon his nerves. And when anything began to jar on William's nerves something always happened.
It was not till about a week later that he noticed Bettine Franklin.
Bettine was small and dark. There was nothing "angelic" about her.
William had noticed her vaguely in school before and had hardly looked upon her as a distinct personality. But one recreation in the playground he stood leaning against the wall by himself, scowling at Evangeline Fish. She was surrounded by a crowd of admirers, and was prattling to them artlessly in her angelic voice.
"I'm going to be dressed in white muslin with a blue sash. Blue suits me, you know. I'm so fair." She tossed back a ringlet. "One of you will have to hold my train and the rest must dance round me. I'm going to have a crown and--" She turned round in order to avoid the scowling gaze of William in the distance. William had discovered that his scowl annoyed her, and since then had given it little rest. But there was no satisfaction in scowling at the back of her well-curled head, so he relaxed his scowl and let his gaze wander round the playground. And it fell upon Bettine. Bettine was also standing by herself and gazing at Evangeline Fish. But she was not scowling. She was looking at Evangeline Fish with wistful envy. For Evangeline Fish was "angelic" and a May Queen, and she was neither of these things.
William strolled over and lolled against the wall next to her.
"'Ullo!" he said, without looking at her, for this change of position had brought him again within range of Evangeline Fish's eye, and he was once more simply one concentrated scowl.
"'Ullo," murmured Bettine shyly and politely.
"You like pink rock?" was William's next effort.
"Um," said Bettine, nodding emphatically.
"I'll give you some next time I buy some," said William munificently, "but I shan't be buying any for a long time," he added bitterly, "'cause an ole ball slipped out my hands on to our dining-room window before I noticed it yesterday."
She nodded understandingly.
"I don't mind!" she said sweetly. "I'll like you jus' as much if you don't ever give me any rock."
William blushed.
"I di'n't know you liked me," he said.
"I do," she said fervently. "I like your face an' I like the things you say."
William had forgotten to scowl. He was one flaming mixture of embarrassment and delight. He plunged his hands into his pockets and brought out two marbles, a piece of clay, and a broken toy gun.
"You can have 'em all," he said in reckless generosity.